Established in 2006, the Keystone State Education Coalition is a growing grass roots, non-partisan public education advocacy group of several hundred locally elected, volunteer school board members and administrators from school districts throughout Pennsylvania. Our mission is to evaluate, discuss and inform our boards, district constituents and legislators on legislative issues of common interest and to facilitate active engagement in public education advocacy.

Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences restored for promising
students

December 8, 201212:06 am

By Bill Schackner / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pennsylvania
Governor's School for the Sciences, which fell victim in 2009 to Pennsylvania's budget crisis, is being resurrected this
summer at CarnegieMellonUniversity
with help from a state grant and matching private funds, officials confirmed
Friday.

For decades, the school
and several others hosted by colleges across the state -- known collectively as
the Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence -- provided some of the commonwealth's
most talented high school students intensive summer study in the arts and
sciences, free of charge.

When the state concluded
it could no longer afford the highly regarded five-week programs, the schools'
supporters launched an aggressive effort to restore them.

This is a great program that was formerly the PA Governor’s
School for Information Technology

DrexelUniversity
Computing Academy

DUCA is a five-week,
residential, summer computing program at DrexelUniversity in Philadelphia, PA
that promotes interest in information technology, computer science, business
and digital arts & media. DUCA students do not focus on one specific area
of computing. Rather, the program has a more holistic approach to education,
exposing students to a variety of fields in computing through interactive,
group projects.

The program is open to
current high school sophomores and juniors, with no residency
requirements—students from anywhere in the U.S. may apply.

MEDIA COURTHOUSE — A Delaware County Court of Common Pleas justice will
determine the direction of the ChesterUplandSchool
District sometime within the next 10 days.
Judge Chad F. Kenney must decide whether to grant a petition to appoint Joseph
Watkins as receiver to the district. As receiver, Watkins would oversee the
implementation of a financial and academic recovery plan he developed while
serving as the district’s chief recovery officer since August. The school board
also would lose much of its power.
Attorney George Dawson, special counsel to Chester Upland, argued against
granting the petition at a court hearing that lasted about 50 minutes Friday.
He claimed the district is not financially distressed, making the petition for
a receiver “arbitrary and capricious.”

School boards can help
NSBA lobby to avoid fiscal cliff

More than 300 school boardsalready
have passed resolutions urging members of Congress to stop sequestration, which
is also being called the fiscal cliff. The National School Boards Association
(NSBA) isasking school boardsto pass a resolution, write letters to
local newspapers and take actions to publicize schools’ plights. NSBA also
wants your stories about how these cuts could impact your students and schools.Learn more on the NSBA’s “Stop Sequestration”
webpagefor
a list of actions for local school board members and more information
about the threats.

WASHINGTON — The NAACP is going on
the offensive on education, deploying volunteers across the country in its
biggest push for a public education overhaul since the nation's classrooms were
ordered desegregated in 1954, the civil rights group said Thursday.

The volunteers, who have
been trained for the past two years, will lobby at the state and county levels
for four educational priorities:

_ Extended school hours
and years in school

_ Improved teacher
training

_ Improved preschool
programs

_ Better targeting of
spending to the neediest of students

Such changes for all
children, not just minorities, are the only way to ensure an educated American
workforce and a thriving economy, said NAACP president and CEO Ben Jealous.

Dinosaurs and Denial

New York Times ByCHARLES M. BLOW

Finally, Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida
— a Tea Party darling and possible 2016 presidential candidate — admits that
dinosaurs and humans didn’t co-exist. Last
month,when GQ asked Rubio“how old do you think the
Earth is?” he stammered through an answer.

“I’m not a scientist,
man. I can tell you what recorded history says. I can tell you what the Bible
says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians.” He continued, “Whether
the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be
able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.”

About Me

Mark Twain: "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board."
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School Director, School District of Haverford Township, since 1999;
Chairman, Delaware County School Boards Legislative Council;
Founder and Co-Chair, Southeastern Pennsylvania School Districts’ Education Coalition/Keystone State Education Coalition, Board of Directors, PA School Boards Assocation
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If you have any feedback or links to articles that might be a good fit on this blog please email me at lawrenceafeinberg@gmail.com
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